I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an Internet marketing method and game, and, more particularly, to such a marketing method in which a game is designed to attract visitors to a web site and to retain their attention while a variety of ads are displayed.
II. Description of the Related Art
Marketing of products and services via the Internet has exploded in recent years. Just as in standard marketing, it is a constant challenge to get potential customers to visit or xe2x80x9chitxe2x80x9d on a marketer""s web site. There are literally millions of Internet/World Wide Web sites which are accessible by users of the Internet. A problem with using such Web Sites as a marketing tool is the huge number of options available to a user. In other words, without some incentive or direction for a user to access a particular company""s web site, there is little likelihood that a particular user will access that web site, or even be aware of its existence.
Many different creative methods of encouraging customers to access marketing web sites have been developed primary among which is the use of xe2x80x9cbanner adsxe2x80x9d or other advertising space and images which are displayed on search engines, etc. A problem with such banner ads is the limited time exposure to a potential customer presented by a search engine or other general interest web site.
It is apparent that a new marketing strategy and method is needed to take advantage of the Internet to provide a more reliable exposure of potential customers to a marketer""s advertisements. Such a marketing strategy should encourage a maximum number of individuals to come to the web site featuring the advertisements, and to remain there for a time sufficient to view all of the available advertisements, and/or to repeatedly view particular ones of the advertisements.
The present invention is an Internet marketing game designed for promoting access to the web site which hosts the game, and to keep potential consumers occupied on the web site for exposure to several different advertising spaces, or to a few such advertising spaces repeatedly. The advertising spaces can be the property of the promoter of the game web site, or, alternatively, some or all of the space can be sold to other web site marketers.
The inventive game is centered around a xe2x80x9cpoint and clickxe2x80x9d system in which a screen display is provided which includes an image made up of a large number of individual pixels. A player is encouraged to move a cursor, by mouse or the like, around the image and to randomly select a pixel or image area on the image by clicking on the mouse button. The x-y coordinate location of the pixel or image area is then compared against stored x-y coordinates for winning pixel or image area location(s). If the location of the selected pixel or image area matches the pixel or image area location randomly selected and stored, then the player wins a prize. Players are encouraged to play the game as many times as they like, and with each play, one or more advertisements are displayed on the screen outside of the picture. Of course, with a large number of pixels on a typical image, selection of a particular winning pixel or image area location at random is an extremely small probability. In the example given herein as a preferred embodiment, the game is called THE TREELOOT GAMESM and the image is of a xe2x80x9cmoney treexe2x80x9d, i.e. a tree supporting thousands of dollar bills.
The principle objects and advantages of the invention include: to provide an Internet marketing method and game; to provide such a marketing method and game which encourages potential customers to visit the web sites of game sponsors; to provide such a marketing method and game in order to build an Internet audience; to provide such a marketing method and game in which a game image is displayed to a player along with advertisements for game sponsors; to provide such a marketing method and game in which a player is prompted to select an image area on the game image by xe2x80x9cpointing and clickingxe2x80x9d thereon; to provide such a marketing method and game in which one or more winning image areas are stored in memory to be compared against the image areas selected by a player to determine if a winning xe2x80x9cmatchxe2x80x9d has been made; to provide such a marketing method and game in which a player is encouraged to repeatedly play the game, thus repeatedly exposing the player to advertisements of game sponsors; to provide such a marketing method and game in which each losing game round results in a losing response page being displayed to the player, which response page also includes at least one game sponsor ad; to provide such a marketing method and game which effectively exposes multiple potential customers to a sponsor""s ad for extended periods; to provide such a marketing method and game which generates advertising revenue; to provide such a marketing method and game which can act as a cross-promotion for other web sites and/or games; and to provide such a marketing method and game which is particularly effective for its intended purpose.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein are set forth, by way of illustration and example, certain embodiments of this invention.
The drawings constitute a part of this specification and include exemplary embodiments of the present invention and illustrate various objects and features thereof.